Age Group Ace: Pete Magill

From smoking to smokin' fast

It's hard to believe that Pete Magill was once a four-pack-a-day smoker. "I'd kick things off with two packs of Marlboros, then a pack of Camel non-filters when I couldn't taste the Marlboros anymore, and then a pack of Kool menthols when even the Camels weren't registering," says Magill. At age 47, the legal researcher has posted 2008 track times of 4:02.01 for 1500m, 8:36.86 for 3,000m, 14:34.27 for 5,000m, along with a 14:50 at the Carlsbad 5K road race. The 3,000m and 5,000m track times are both pending American records, bettering his own marks of 8:37.52 and 14:45.96, set in 2006. He also set the American 10,000m record of 31:27.3 in 2006.

Although Magill showed promise in high school, clocking 1:55.3 for 800m and 4:26 in the mile, and then earned All American accolades in cross country at Glendale Junior College, he drifted away from running after that, hitchhiking around the country, owning a nightclub on St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands and then working as a screenwriter in Hollywood. "I started and stopped running at least a dozen times, but my lifestyle wasn't conducive to a consistent training program," he recalls. "It was a lifestyle that contributed to alcohol and drug abuse problems that plagued me for two decades."

At 39, Magill scaled over 200 pounds, compared with the 165 he now carries on his 6-foot frame, and suffered from bronchitis for five months. "I had a young son to think about, and I realized that I couldn't go on like that," he explains. "So I put down my cigarettes and bourbon, laced up the running shoes and started running again."

But it was hard starting over. Magill recalls setting out for a 3-mile run his first time out, but settling for three blocks. "It took me most of a year before I finally felt like maybe I could race again," he says, adding that he then suffered two stress fractures in one leg after attempting some track workouts. Then he cracked two ribs water skiing.

By age 41 in 2002, however, Magill was in high gear, clocking 3:56.42 in the Steve Scott Invitational 1500m and 8:31.08 in the Occidental Invitational 3,000m. His most memorable effort came that year when he teamed up with Tony Young, David Olds, and Jamin Aasum to set a world masters record of 17:40.63 in the 4 x 1600m relay.

While he doesn't have the speed he once had and requires more time to recover, Magill thinks that those losses have been, for the most part, offset by the knowledge that comes with experience. "Mentally, aging has given me insight to which youth blinded me," he says. "When I was young, I feared that if I didn't do every crazy thing I could think of that very instant, life would pass me by, that there would be no opportunity to make up for lost time in the future. Now, I've learned that there's plenty of time in life to do all the things you'd like to do – as long as you don't waste time trying to do them all at once."

Same, except Tuesday p.m. speed work, which he exchanges for 3 x set of 1 mile at 15K pace, 1200m at 5K pace, 800m at 3K pace, 400m at mile pace; all with 400m jog recoveries; 3-mile warm-up and 2-mile warm-down. If race on Saturday, he does only one workout on Thursday (medium run) and Friday (20 minutes of jogging and stretching).

Training philosophy

"Put away your watch, stop counting miles and start listening to the body. Our bodies will tell us more accurately how fast and far to run than a watch or training log ever can. And our bodies will warn us when we're courting disaster - injury or overtraining - long before our minds are willing to accept the premise. More importantly, when we learn to listen to our bodies, we learn how to race."